Directive 8020 Review – A Deeply Average Deep Space Horror

There was a time when narrative-driven adventure games with weighty decisions and branching paths were all the rage, but their kind has dwindled. Supermassive Games is one of the few holdouts still working within and attempting to advance this framework in the modern gaming landscape. In this pursuit, the developer has left the haunted cabins and ghost ships behind for the vacuum of space in Directive 8020, the debut of the Dark Pictures Anthology’s second season, in a shift that keeps their prior earthbound horror stylings from growing stale. Moving the terror to the colony ship Cassiopeia injects a massive dose of claustrophobia into a formula that already had us on the edge of our seats in the studio’s other offerings. For their latest fear-drenched title, the mission is simple: humanity is dying, and the crew needs to establish a foothold on the distant exoplanet Tau Ceti f. But as it always happens, plans are drastically disrupted and what was once a mission for humanity’s survival becomes a desperate struggle for survival for the Cassiopeia crew.

The ship itself acts as the primary antagonist before any other threat even pings the expedition team’s radar. It is not the pristine engineering of modern science fiction. The Cassiopeia looks heavy. It feels industrial and lived-in. Metal groans under immense pressure, and sparks shower from blown conduits in the dark. The lighting engine does heavy lifting here. For example, emergency red lights cast long, deceiving shadows across the space, soaking it all in a menacing hue. It builds genuine, creeping tension. But the exploration is still tied to the classic, somewhat rigid, Supermassive movement. Trying to inspect a glowing datapad on a desk sometimes requires the player to shuffle the character back and forth until the button prompt finally appears, creating momentary disruptions in an otherwise deeply immersive environment.

Directive 8020 is at its best when it plays with paranoia. The threat is different from the monstrosities the developer has presented prior. Without spoiling too much, this new approach makes many decisions less straightforward and more of a gamble than the player might initially expect. And given that moments arise where the player has mere seconds to decide the fate of a character makes it all the more heart-pounding. These moments carry enormous weight, which is often amplified by spectacularly grotesque moments of body horror.

Stand By Your Decisions (Or Don’t)

The surveyors-turned-survivors, such as Lashana Lynch-voiced Brianna Young, are frantically trying to keep things together. The five protagonists react to the escalating horrors well enough, providing mostly strong deliveries of their blind panic and ingrained training. Supermassive’s motion capture remains top notch, and it catches each character’s ever-important subtle micro-expressions—a twitch of the eye or a sharp inhale before a demanding task. The performances aim to ground the wild space opera in human reality, and there are a couple standouts that manage that for the most part, but others among the cast struggle to consistently maintain that level of quality and provide impactful line delivery. Additionally, the rest of the Cassiopeia crew falls into very familiar genre tropes. There is the arrogant pilot, the cowardly scientist, and the stoic security officer. Their dialogue often feels stitched together just to accommodate the branching narrative paths. Sometimes a character will deliver a heartfelt monologue about the family they left behind on Earth, only to immediately transition into a generic, monotone observation about a broken computer console. That jarring transition is worsened by characters who, despite being presented as some of the smartest assets leading humanity’s crucial mission, lack basic critical thinking and led me to believe they may have lied on their resumes.

As is expected from this style of game, reflexes and speedy decision-making will be tested through Quick Time Events (QTEs), a mechanic you either miss from its prominence during the 2000’s/2010’s era of gaming or one you happily watched sail off into the sunset. Regardless of the camp you fall into, I can say that Supermassive knows how to pace a cinematic chase. The camera angles are deliberately restrictive. They hide the terror just out of frame until the last possible second. And there are hefty consequences for failing these QTE sequences. Miss a button, and a foot slips. Miss two, and that character may fall victim to one of the many brutal, unforgiving death scenes embedded in the game.

Keep in mind, failure and death don’t simply result in a “Game Over” screen that sees you reloading the last checkpoint. If a character dies in chapter two, they are gone for the rest of the eight-to-ten hour runtime. The story simply adapts and moves on. It’s an effective system that amplifies the panic surrounding these sequences, even if the QTEs are sometimes poorly telegraphed. Admittedly, this may also be a design choice. It’s clear that the developer doesn’t want the player ever feeling a sense of safety or comfort. So if you put down the controller during a seemingly quiet, emotional scene and suddenly a prompt appears demanding that a button be mashed, you really only have your own complacency to blame. This seemingly hard stance in favor of committing to a player’s action (or inaction) is dependent on whether the game is being played in Survivor or Explorer mode. Survivor mirrors that classic structure of previous Supermassive games, whereas Explorer enables the ability to rewind to undo a decision or explore a different outcome.

There are a fair number of outcomes that each character can be driven toward based on player choices. This appears in the trait and destiny systems affecting each of the core protagonists. Players will make important decisions that solidify character personality traits that not only help define them but also may lock out story pathways down the line, which didn’t always feel clear or entirely logically sound when such a block cropped up. These decisions ultimately push characters toward their final destiny, for better or worse. It’s another way Directive 2080 aims to add impact to each decision, as the direction chosen in a matter of seconds can carry consequences hours later.

Not Acing the Pacing

To mix things up this time around, the usual back-to-back QTE sections are broken up by the introduction of stealth segments. These moments are fairly forgiving, largely due to simplistic AI and rigid patrol routes, and won’t challenge player’s skills as an interstellar Sam Fisher—the forgiveness is further bolstered if using the Explorer mode’s rewind feature or a toggleable parry setting that allows for a QTE escape if caught. The stealth may break up the usual formula found in the Dark Pictures Anthology, but its implementation is nothing standout or progressive. In fact, its use began to feel like more of a detriment than an advancement of the formula given its saturation throughout the story. Perhaps in the future the studio will build more meaningfully upon the systems integrated as breakaways from their normal flow.

It is worth noting that the pacing drags a bit after the intro. The opening hour establishes the terrifying rules beautifully. The finale is a chaotic, high-stakes sprint. But the middle consists of too much backtracking. The game forces the characters to fix restore various functions of the ship, leaning toward a mundane checklist compared to the narrative moments sitting on either side. The tension begins to wane as players are asked to walk down the exact same gray corridor for the fourth time. The environmental puzzles found here aren’t all that engaging, and perhaps they wouldn’t be highlighted as sticking points if the opening and closing hours weren’t so much better.

The sound design, however, rarely falters. In deep space, audio is everything. The audio mixing is superb. The low hum of the ship’s reactor becomes a constant, comforting companion. When the power cuts out, the absolute silence is deafening. As each episode ends, they’re punctuated by a punchy and catchy soundtrack that reinforces the mood. There are other notable sounds, too, that send the hair on the back of your neck shooting straight up. However, it’s hard to dive into the how and why these particular noises are so effective and alarming without trending toward spoiler territory, but trust me when I say that the team still knows how to create tension through their expert audio work.

Directive 8020 Review Verdict

[Editor’s Note: Directive 8020 was reviewed on PS5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]